Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Renowned and brilliant seventeenth-century fabulist, Jean de La Fontaine, watches the exchange between the crow and the fox in the Jardin Ranelagh, Paris. The fox, who sees a crow with a piece of camembert cheese, flatters him by telling him that he surely must be the greatest of all songbirds. With his ego sufficiently inflated, the proud crow opens his beak to demonstrate his beautiful caw and the camembert falls to the feet of the wily fox.

La Fontaine, a master of turning phrases, reworked Aesop with a spirited and complex use of the French language. Nary a pupil in France has not memorized one of his fables.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

It's not because there is a rose on the bush that the bird alights on its branch: it's because there are aphids.

Wrought-iron cats stealthily stalk their prey, a bird perched on the branch of a rose bush. The Art Nouveau work embellishes the entrance to the 1912 award-winning façade at 9 rue Louis Boilly, Paris. The building was designed by architect Charles Labro.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

View from a stairwell window inside the Château de Maintenon.At the end of the garden are the remnants of an abandoned aqueduct, part of the Canal de l'Eure project which was originally intended in 1686 to transport water from Pontgouin to Versailles. Designed to feed the fountains of the Château de Versailles, the ambitious and costly project's original plans were for a three-tier aqueduct that would surpass even the Roman Pont du Gard.

The ruins impart an incredibly romantic quality to the Renaissance château's grounds.

Friday, March 14, 2014

We haven't quite reached the March 20th vernal equinox, but it's approach is signaled by stunning apricot blossoms from friend and contributor Sylvia's garden near Uzès in the Gard. The French dictum tells us that when the apricot is in bloom, days and nights are of equal length.